Going Postal
by Connie Nervegas
Summary: <html><head></head>Raph braves the dangers of the United States Postal system.</html>


_I went to the post office and decided to use that experience to torture Raph. Because somebody has else has to suffer. I like making him stand in line. More Leo/ Raph stuff. Yeah, yeah. I can't help it. I'll work on some Don/ Mike stuff or some other combo once I have the brains for it again. I know there's this trend with saying they don't sweat, but they're mutants okay. Cut them some slack and give them some human traits. And they sweat in the first and fourth movies. So there._

Fifteen people! Fifteen people in line. Half of them had half a dozen large packages and boxes. One lady had fifty envelopes that needed stamps.

What about the machine? Raph turned to the automated postage machine and tried to decipher to incomprehensible pricing chart. He didn't have a credit card. Well, he couldn't use that then. Back to the line.

An old lady sidled in front of him, cueing him with body language that he was no longer a part of the line. Get in the back.

"What? I barely moved!" he cried in exasperation. He ran his fingernails over the ridges of his mittens and dropped his package.

She looked straight ahead, pretending he didn't exist.

Raph didn't understand why Splinter was adamant about them being totally covered and disguised in public. It wasn't like humans ever noticed anything about their surroundings. He could strip naked and they wouldn't know the difference. But he was wearing his ski mask and Carhart jacket and pants, mittens and boots. Sweat ran down his arms. This was a high price to pay. Leo had better faint from joy when he got these letters. Anything less meant that the trip wasn't worth it. April or Casey could have mailed them. Why did he insist on sending them himself? So what it they were both struck down with the killer flu? Puking their guts out. Amongst other gruesome things. It was their duty as the family humans to stand in boring lines for them.

There was only one person working the counter. And his customer was asking, "Is there any way to make sure that a letter goes throw a certain post office and gets there at a certain time?"

The post office guy said, "There's no real way to know where it is or when it gets there without a tracking number."

How long did it usually take for things to get to Leo? It depended on where he got his mail at the time. Sometimes he was totally out of communication. Leo. Sitting in a balmy jungle, eating tropical fruit, with a group of lackeys doing his bidding. Flirting with the local girls, no doubt. Leo was a huge slut. Or he would be if could.

And Raph stood in line at the post office. He was momentarily gripped with a jealous rage until he remembered that his Nightwatcher suit was nearly finished. He just needed to find a way to keep his metal clad ass from slipping off the motorcycle seat. He could see it now. He rescues a pretty girl and then instead of riding majestically into the sunset, he skids off the back, landing in a puddle.

Maybe he could spray the ass of the suit with Pam non-stick spray.

"Well, there's no way to know without getting a tracking number," the post office guy said, with a big perky smile.

"Oh, just buy a fucking tracking number!" Raph grumbled loudly.

A girl behind him giggled. He turned around, unconsciously drawn by her flirty laughter. Maybe he should try to make small talk. Never got the chance normally. "Whatcha mailin'?" he asked. Stupid. Kind of obvious.

"A Christmas card," she said. "I have pictures of my little brothers in here and I want to make sure they don't bend it. I'm sending it to Lithuania. You?"

Should he say? Her brown sparkling eyes glowing with interest instead of revulsion tossed aside all his reserve and ninja instincts. It was the one thing that could thwart a ninja. Splinter had never figured on that. "Yeah, it's a bunch of pictures and letters and shit for my brother. He's… studying… in Central America. I think he's in Honduras right now. Stupid Leo." His shoulders slumped at the unbidden image of Leo swinging on vines like Tarzan.

The girl's name was Kaitlin and she was a student at Sarah Lawrence College. He said it had a girly name. She giggled some more. He didn't know why. Maybe she thought he looked stupid, with his ski mask. Maybe she could see the green around his eyes.

Then she said, "You have such interesting eyes. I don't think I've seen that color before. Are they yellow? Kind of gold."

"Rrr. Well… dunno…" Real smooth. Girls like men who are articulate at a basic level.

"They're really beautiful. Let me take your picture." She reached into her purse for her camera.

"No! I mean, I don't like pictures. Too ugly." He took a few steps back and crashed into the lady behind him. It was a good thing he was wearing a ski mask because his face was a bright purple color. "I mean, it's a bad idea. I can't take the mask off."

She pulled out her phone and pushed a few buttons. "No, leave it on. That's better. It's mysterious."

He tried not to giggle himself as she took his picture. "I'll take yours now," he said, without thinking.

She struck a dramatic pose and he snapped her picture with his phone. "Let me see," she demanded, coming around beside him to see the screen. He hurriedly flicked to the picture so that she wouldn't see his screensaver picture. Mikey asleep on the john.

The line inched forward.

Raph spent twenty minutes conversing with Kaitlin as if she were a close and personal friend. He told her that he screamed over a cockroach that morning and that Don used to leave kerosene in milk jugs and that they kept the Poison Control Center phone number on speed dial because of him. She told him that her cat had seven toes and her sister got a flashlight as a Christmas present from Michael Stipe when he changed her spare tire.

Then he was at the front of the line. At long last. Triump. And it only took half an hour.

"Next," the post office guy said.

Raph stepped up and dumped his envelope on the counter. "I got to send this to Honduras."

"How? Priority?" the guy asked. "When do you want it to get there?"

Time? Before he shoved off to the next endangered village. "Soon as possible, I guess."

The guy handed him some labels to fill out and sent him off to a table. He was shunted aside and grunted. Nobody heard his frustration.

He had to write? He'd written the address on the package very nicely so that he wouldn't have to take off his mittens in public. Would it matter? Could he risk it? Maybe turn his back to them. But the line wound around him on all sides. Somebody would see.

And the pen was on a chain and wouldn't reach. He growled. Oops. He didn't like growling around humans. Seemed… less than human. Kaitlin stood at the counter and gave him a sideways glace. He wasn't sure how to read her expression. She didn't look disturbed or disgusted anyway.

"Fucking pen… just… this is like writing with my left hand!" he yelled at the general populace as he tried to get a grip on the chained pen with his mitten. He could hold a blood covered sai, but he couldn't hold a pen.

"Need some help?" Kaitlin asked, folding up a book of stamps and sticking them in her wallet.

"No," Raph said as he got a clumsy grip on the pen and wrote his name like he had a palsy.

It took twice as long as normal and he finally finished and shoved the labels under the clerk's nose, pushing past the next person in line.

The clerk took a split second glace and said, "This is illegible. You'll have to do it again." He handed him a few more label.

Raph stomped back to the table and cast a glance over his shoulder for Kailtin. Gone. He felt deserted. Their relationship had lasted a full twenty glorious minutes. Fine. He pulled off his mitten and tossed it onto the table with so much energy that it bounced onto the floor.

This time, he wrote the label quickly and then pushed his way as close as he could manage to the lady at the counter without looking strange. Then he decided he didn't care if he looked strange. Leo could live without his stupid sun block. Let the fucker get skin cancer. He hadn't written home for six weeks. Splinter asked April every day if she got anything for them in the mail.

Raph slammed his mittened fist on the counter and said, "THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE PAY TAXES FOR? SO WE CAN STAND HERE IN LINE WHILE YOU FUCKING MORONS JACK OFF IN THE BACK ROOM? WHAT ARE THOSE OTHER FOOLS DOING BACK THERE! I CAN HEAR 'EM BACK THERE! SEND ONE OF THEM OUT HERE AND SEND THIS FUCKING PACKAGE TO HONDURAS!"

The other patrons of the United States Post Office looked away at their feet or out the window. An older woman suddenly became very interested in the flat rate shipping boxes.

"I'll have to ask you to leave now, sir," the man behind the counter said, his eyes squinting as Raph's rage washed over him like a blood red tidal wave. "There's nothing I can do if you can't write legibly and wait in line like everybody else."

Raph grabbed his package and left, pushing the door so hard that it banged against the automatic postage machine and he heard a guy say, "Dude, what's your problem!" as he blew past, making sure to shove him with his shoulder.

He ran a few streets away, hazed over with hatred at the inefficiency of the United States government and wondering if was a violation of his civil rights to discriminate against bad hand writing before he realized that mutants didn't have civil rights. He leaned against a dumpster and ripped off the package's wrapping.

Third trip to the post office now to mail the same package. Just ditch the package and pretend it was sent. Then Don will stop bitching about it. Raph pulled out a few packages of potato chips and opened one, munching on chips as he browsed the contents. Some condoms. Yeah. Fearless… never going to have use for those… Like any of them did. But Leo would never see the humor in it. Just a reminder that their bodies made women run away and scream in disgust and fear. Not stand there and give them head. Raph pictured their father reading a letter demanding that they stop sending him prophylactics. His flunkies saw them and he lost morale. They actually thought he was cool for five minutes and it ruined his reputation.

A flashlight. Raph tossed it behind him into a garbage can. Stupid idea. A flashlight for a ninja. Teabags. Crossword puzzles. Deodorant. Candy. Lots of bandages and first aid supplies. Raph's iPod full of random songs and amusing .mp3s.

He pulled out the letter that accompanied the care package:

"Thought you could use this shit cause you probly can't buy stuff down there and sorry if you can't read my writing I'm on top of a building and there's like fifty gazillion flood watches here and its pretty fucked up weather wise. You should have seen this fight I had last night. Don whaled on some guy that looked like herman munster and it was pretty sweet. He's been bitching a lot though I guess it's cause somebody needs to do it. And mikey acts like he's on meth I'm going to have April drug test him. Maybe I should stop hitting him in the head so much. And the condoms were Casey's idea you know I can't buy those things if I want to and I don't want to cause I don't do anything and you know it and I don't think you do bad stuff. You're really good. You're the good one. Heh. Don't get laid too much bye"

Raph tore the letter into confetti and let it blow away in the breeze. Stupid Raph. Too stupid to write legibly or write a comprehensible letter. He tossed the package and the contents into the dumpster and told Don it went off without trouble when he got home. Then Raph looked up the rate of skin cancer in Central America and hoped that turtles couldn't get it.

Leo sat against the trunk of a tree and read over his letter. It sounded like a lecture. Just a long list of military reports and battles won. Remote demands for good behavior from brothers outside of arms' reach. No reports of the greater number lost. No mention of himself. No mention of his brothers or his frustration at the powerless homesickness they incurred. He tore the letter up. Write it tomorrow when he had something to talk about.


End file.
